Ribbons
by Shattered Midnight Dreams
Summary: [Eriol and Tomoyo, chaptered]. If their story had been painted, it would have been painted by some achingly hip modern artist and called ‘the empty sonnet of the broken heart’ or some other such nonsense. Now, Eriol wants to right past wrongs.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes: **I think I promised I'd never do this again. Well, clearly I lied. Also, the prologue was so short that in this first chapter is _both _the prologue and the first chapter.

**Summary: **Eriol and Tomoyo, chaptered. If their story had been painted, it would have been painted by some achingly hip modern artist and called 'the empty sonnet of the broken heart' or some other such nonsense. Eriol wants to right past wrongs.

**Disclaimer: **CCS is very definitely not mine.

_For Hally corposant._ _I hope that is not too presumptuous._

_Your beautiful style very much influenced this fic._

**Ribbons**

_**Prologue**_

Tomoeda has several coffee shops. This one is Tomoyo's favourite.

There is someone talking at the table to Tomoyo's right. A pair of young women, each wearing her high school's uniform. She recognises them vaguely, but can't recall their names. One looks gravely at the other over her coffee, the other wears bright red lipstick and purses her mouth while she considers her own drink. She is the one talking.

"…Hiiragizawa Eriol."

"He went back to London years ago, though, didn't he?" the other says after a pause and a mouthful of mocha. The first shakes her head.

"Word on the grapevine is that he's coming back."

Tomoyo drops her mug. It shatters all over the floor.

_No._

…

_**Chapter One**_

He left on an aeroplane years ago.

She went with the party to the airport to see him off. He smiled and hugged all those who would stand to be hugged – Li-kun glowered at him, and he grinned and requested a kiss, only to end up narrowly avoiding a punch – and kissed the girls, to Li-kun's continued rage.

When it came to her turn, he looked into her eyes so directly that his kiss was like a burn, searing a brand onto her fair cheek.

…

They had a _thing_, for want of a better term, all those years ago. Seems like a lifetime ago now.

It was for all the wrong reasons. She wanted Sakura and couldn't have her, his continued passion for Mizuki-sensei was being met with coldness. It was all very prim and proper, they would meet in Penguin Park under the stars and she would let him kiss her. Never anything more, not even when her blood screamed out for it.

He would tell her stories about eighteenth century Paris and she would never ask him how he knew. "I walked its streets," he'd say, and she would believe him wordlessly, because she didn't know how not to.

"I want to go there someday," she would say.

And he would nod and try to count the stars.

"There's a string of them," he would say, and point, and she would look.

"Like a necklace," she would say, a hint of a smile playing around her lips.

"Diamonds for you."

…

Once, Sonomi was working in New York for a whole week. Tomoyo took the risk and sneaked out, and they watched the sun rise together five nights in a row.

The servants liked Tomoyo and so turned a blind eye for her, every time. They knew she was with that 'nice Hiiragizawa boy' and that he would see her home each morning (and after all, anyone with an English accent as proper and well-bred as that couldn't possibly be anything less than perfectly respectable).

One or two of her bodyguards would sit up to wait for them coming down the path. They would listen as he murmured something into her cheek, as she answered, voice quiet, demure, as usual. They felt as though they should look away as he touched her face, traced the curve of her cheek, as she closed her eyes, lost in it, tilted her head for a final kiss, breath shuddering. It was intruding on something painfully private, not meant for their – or anyone's – eyes. They averted their gaze throughout the three, four, five final kisses; her hands fisted tightly in his shirt, sunlight drowning in her hair.

He would walk away, and she would stare after him, watching him as he left. She'd stand, motionless, in the middle of the garden path, for a few minutes afterwards, just staring into the distance after him. Over her head, the sky was a brilliant amalgam of violet and pink and orange.

She looked impossibly small from where her bodyguards sat, perched on a windowsill in one of the bathrooms. Their little girl.

She looked alone without him, adrift in the great green sea of the garden.

When she came indoors finally and two of her personal maids met her in the hall to whisk her upstairs for an hour or two of precious sleep before school, if she ever had grass in her hair, if she ever looked a little mussed, if her colour was ever a little high, they never said anything.

…

They called it _young love_, and they were nearly right.

…

He bought her a single rose for her fifteenth birthday. She put it in a vase of fresh water on her windowsill. It was a clear, vibrant scarlet; its head heavy with perfume and thick velvet petals.

He'd left the thorns on. Privately, she'd always thought a rose wasn't a rose without thorns.

It drank the September sunlight that streamed through her window as she did her homework. All the maids admired it.

Sonomi couldn't quite bring herself to ask who it was from. She had suspicions that she didn't want confirmed.

It was still blooming as brightly two months later, even as the September sunshine faded away to November gloom and drizzle.

When confronted about it, he admitted to having put an enchantment on it.

"It will never wilt?"

"Never."

…

She almost fell in love with him over that rose.

…

Three weeks later, he announced that he was leaving for England.

He told her as they lay, sprawled, on the grass in Penguin Park under a canopy of starry night-sky. She'd packed a picnic for them. The air was crisp and cool in a way that suggested December and Christmas and snow were only around the corner, but still inexplicably warm for the time of year.

She was wearing his favourite white dress. There were ribbons in her hair that he had tied for her. Her hair had smelled like a bouquet of flowers, felt like rough silk under his fingers.

These things made it all the harder.

"I'm leaving for England in two days. With Kaho."

Someone somewhere was letting off fireworks. They rose like dragons to twist and burn in the sky, star-bursts in green-gold and red and silver and purple and blue in the distance.

"Mizuki-sensei?"

"Yes."

Questions swirled through her mind. They tried to settle on her tongue, but as soon as they did, she forgot them.

"Because you love her," she'd said instead, and it wasn't a question.

Ahead, the stars were spread out in a roadmap to paradise, but she couldn't read it.

…

She came up to him the day before he left.

He was working in the music room – she hung around outside the door for a few moments, collecting herself, and overheard him say goodbye to the black grand piano. They'd played together in a concert or three – Tomoyo couldn't quite count - the pair of them. Tomoyo had stood beside it and sang – _Ave Maria _and _Yoru_ _No Uta _and _Koko_ _Ni Kite _and even _Greensleeves_. They were all his favourites.

He practised on it after school most days. Sometimes she had stayed behind just to listen – she'd always wished she had learned to play piano, and marvelled at the way he did it - or brought her homework or a small piece of embroidery or sewing she'd been working on. Every now and then he cajoled her into singing. People moving about the school, participating in clubs or sports, overheard snatches of their song and smiled at each other.

Everyone had supposed their getting together would be only a matter of time. In the end, nobody even knew about it. They were still waiting for news of the beginning of a relationship that had already come and gone.

"Hiiragizawa-kun."

He looked up from the piano. He'd sensed her behind the door – he had enough magic left for small feats such as that, especially when he was feeling strongly towards the person – but he still felt surprised at hearing her voice.

She looked small and timid and unsure, standing there in her uniform, not the Daidouji-san he knew. He had bought her the ribbons she was wearing in her hair. He wondered for a second if she had forgotten that, but then no, Daidouji-san never forgot such things. Maybe she was trying to completely undo him.

It was almost working.

"Yes?"

For a few long moments, she said nothing. A bird was chirping outside somewhere, its song filtering in through the open window. The sunlight, still so strangely strong for late November, flooded the room and made dust-motes swirl in the air. The room felt like it was full of old, delicate things. Tomoyo felt she should whisper, as though she were in a library.

"The rose," she said finally, forcing the words out through the stone in her chest that was grazing her throat. "Please… Take the enchantment off it."

"Why?"

He wanted to reach out and touch her.

"It's time for it to die."

…

She'd watched it wilt, little by little by little. It died slowly, faded away, until it was only a brown stalk and a scatter of dry petals. She was loath to throw it away, and it stood still on her windowsill, unmoving and untouched. Framed by the lines of her window, it looked like a painting by some achingly hip modern artist – _the empty sonnet of the broken heart_, maybe, or some other such nonsense.

Pretentious words meant to sound heartfelt.

One day, she opened the window and let the wind carry all the petals away. She touched the stalk and it crumbled to dust under her fingers, and it flew away too.

…

**Author's Notes: **This is supposed to be my attempt at a serious, non-AU ExT. ExT like in the old days. ExT where Eriol actually acts like Eriol and Tomoyo actually acts like Tomoyo. Anyone who has read any of my previous works can see how this would be a challenge for me.

This will probably be my last major 'hurrah!' with these two. I want to make it a good one. I want to try to put right all the previous crimes I have committed against this pair.

Also, anyone who expects it to stay as sombre as this? Somehow I doubt it will. Most of my stuff tends to degenerate into light-heartedness. I certainly don't see this turning into an angst-fest.

I'm going to do my best. I just hope I finish the damn thing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes:** This fic is coming to me surprisingly easily. Truly, I cannot believe it.

**Disclaimer:** CCS doesn't belong to me.

For Hally (corposant). I hope that is not too presumptuous.

Your beautiful writing style very much influenced this fic, and your encouragement is absolutely priceless. Thank you.

Also for Diana, for providing this fic with its soundtrack. And because you are wonderful.

**Ribbons**

**Chapter Two**

To be exact, he left on an aeroplane two years, two weeks and four days ago.

…

The one thing about this scene – his leaving, the airport, their faces, Kaho's easy smile, this strange ache in his heart – that is imprinted on his mind to endure the years to come is the scarlet ribbon in her hair.

It fills his dreams every night for months afterwards, he sees it crowning her fresh, apple-cheeked fifteen-year-old's face; sees it falling, flapping in the wind to trail behind her, flying for one shining, glorious moment before plummeting to be trampled underfoot by nameless, faceless people. Once, he picked it up and ran after her with it, calling, "Daidouji-san!" but she never turned, eternally three steps ahead.

He wakes in a cold sweat. The ribbon comes to represent everything he left behind.

…

He can pinpoint the exact second he realised that he couldn't so easily walk back into this old life.

He had come down into the kitchen one morning after two weeks flown away. Kaho was sitting at the kitchen table, her hair – always so much like flames – drawn up into a ponytail, a pair of reading glasses perched upon her nose. Morning paper in hand.

"Eriol, good morning! I made breakfast, help yourself," she said cheerily, gesturing at a plate of toast sitting in the centre of the table. It was piled high with naked slices and a jar of marmalade - with the lid unscrewed and a knife propped invitingly in it – stood beside. It was so orange it was almost vermillion.

The headline of her paper was in English. It felt strange to him.

Outside, it was drizzling grey, London drizzle; the kind that soaks far more effectively that ordinary raindrops. The kind of rain that every Londoner knows is an automatic licence to grumble and sigh, put up an umbrella – that will inevitably break within five minutes, leaving a spoke sticking free of the material that will try to poke the eye out of every other commuter on the Tube – like a martyr, and say to each other, "typical awful weather, what?"

Because they are Londoners, and that is how it goes.

"Awful London weather, eh?" Eriol said to Kaho as he slid into his seat. She looked up again from her paper, her gaze drawn to the window, the world outside.

"Oh… Yes," she said. She sounded vague, surprised. He wondered how long she had been awake.

"Never matter," she said, scarcely pausing a minute to watch with terracotta eyes the sad, dark swirl of the clouds, the muted grey of the world. "It shall soon be spring."

…

Spring never comes.

…

London seems stuck in eternal winter that year, eternal grey drizzle. It dampens everyone's mood but Kaho's.

Once - when Eriol and Nakuru are alone in the ballroom as he plays affectionately their old grand piano and she writes a letter to Touya-kun that is covered with a worrying number of sticky pink lipstick-kisses and doused in expensive French perfume - Nakuru lets slip what everyone has been thinking.

"I want to go home."

As soon as she says it, she looks horrified at herself, claps her hands to her mouth.

"I'm sorry, Eriol-sama, I didn't mean it, I –"

He holds up a hand and she falls silent immediately.

"I miss it, too."

Unspoken words hang in the air between them, these two who are on the surface master and servant but in reality so much more, the nuances of a relationship which are lost on everyone else.

The air is stifling, choking.

…

One day Kaho doesn't come home from work until very late.

When she does arrive in, hair dripping with that damned London drizzle that has seemed to linger on from their first winter back and permeated everything – their clothes, hair, skin, hearts – she looks at Eriol, hard, for a very very long time.

They stand in the hallway, looking at each other, and screaming, weeping, falling apart, without words.

"There are things I can't say," she says finally.

I am crumbling under the weight of them.

She looks lost, and small, and still somehow older and wiser than he – even with this strange half-soul he possesses – will ever be.

Eriol notices for the first time the cobwebs hanging in the corners of the hallway's cornicing. They droop like they are heavy with something other than thread, like they are bearing a great weight.

He wonders if the spiders in this house catch secrets.

…

She disappears upstairs and reappears ten minutes later with a suitcase packed. He has not moved an inch from where she left him, staring at the cobwebs.

She is dressed in a grey trench coat. When she gets outside, he thinks, she will match the world.

She stoops to kiss his cheek. A feather of her hair brushes his skin and he closes his eyes, drowning. He wishes he could freeze this moment and bottle it up like a fine perfume – alas, he no longer has the kind of power required.

She draws away.

"Zettai daijoubu."

"For Sakura-san, perhaps," he replies lightly.

She shakes her head. Her eyes are soft.

"No, for you, too. I believe it. I am sure of it."

She opens the door, extending her black umbrella into the dark London night. It clashes neatly with the navydark twilight.

Outside, the stars are out in earnest. A map for this most inept traveller.

He wants to grab onto her, hold her here not as a man but naively, desperately, as a child.

Instead, "but Kaho, if you leave something, to what address should I forward it?"

She laughs, gently. Outside, a cab is pulling up in the street. It splashes puddle water onto the footpath, the sudden downpour the last outburst of a waning English summer. The cabbie flicks cigarette ash out of the rolled-down window, a sudden gust of wind transports it away.

"I will have left nothing of importance."

He realises, dimly, that this is it – this is the end, and he can think of nothing to say but good luck. He thinks he should say stay, but his mouth cannot form the word, his tongue lolls uselessly, only in the way.

Outside, the cabbie spots Kaho, illuminated in the doorway, and honks his horn obnoxiously.

"You coming, lady, or am I going to sit here all night?"

"I'm coming, so sorry, sir!"

She has been almost cleansed of her accent, it lingers on in 'r's and 'l's, softly, colouring her speech with a little Eastern exoticism.

He is now remembering all the reasons he loved her. It hurts.

It has been a long time coming, both of them know this, but it dulls neither's pain.

There is a very long pause.

"At least let me walk you to your taxi, Kaho."

There must have been something in his voice, for she laughs the laugh that reminds him of that rare kind of English summer, where the days are bright and clear and filled with daffodils, summer picnics in green parks, strawberries and raspberries and the feeling that here, just here, you hold eternity in your hand, that you never know, your entire future might be these endless sunlit days.

Every summer ends. Winter comes to cloud the sky, the sunlight gives way to snow, the sunshowers become torrential downpours.

The world is constantly moving, changing. You can never hold one moment in your hand.

He is learning these things.

…

He carries her suitcase out to the taxi.

The flowers he planted – she planted, they planted – have sprung into bloom along the garden path, the only things that have enjoyed the rains. They hang violet from the trees, sprout sweet pink from lush green grass, wind delicate white around tree trunks, to waft sweet fragrance around their heads.

He plucks a particularly vivacious azalea as they walk past and twirls it between two of his fingertips, examining it. It is yellow-red like a sunflare.

Beside him, Kaho is singing. Her voice is sweet and low and he only catches snatches of her song, "English summer rain… Umbrellas, my love…"

"Or surrender, soaked together…" he half-murmurs, half-sings.

This song is familiar to both of them. He can't count the number of times they danced to it - a warm old jazz tune and a songstress with a smoky, sultry voice.

He is assaulted by memories. His hand on her slim waist, the twirl of her skirt, her slender ankles moving gracefully, the fall of her hair, Nakuru's admiring calls from her seat beside Suppi at the old grand piano that they all loved so dearly. Her breath against his ear as she sang the words, softly, unconsciously.

For a moment, he is falling away, back through the veil curtains of time.

"English summer rain… Let's hope this summer never…"

There is a catch in her voice. She stops. Overhead, the moon is shining benignly down upon them, silvering the lines of the garden, smudging and softening expertly like a master artist with a stick of silver, like water.

"Ends," she sings finally, and it feels like a door opening, to let sunlight stream in.

…

The arm of the cabbie hanging out of the car window is deeply tanned, and tattooed harshly in black, a few Chinese characters engraved upon his skin. Eriol reads them quickly, and cannot conceal his smile. He catches Kaho's eye and there too is laughter written there, plain as day.

He opens the door for her and she slides in. As she does so, he bends to mutter in her ear, incredulous, "cheap but good? Do you suppose the tattoo artist got the characters off the menu of a Chinese restaurant?"

Kaho laughs and laughs and laughs, her eyes alight. He pauses for a second, once again considers the flower and her face, then moves decisively, tucks the azalea into her hair, fingers deft and quick but unhurried, revelling in this last fleeting contact. He touches accidentally the sensitive curve of her ear, and almost stops.

She watches his face all the while, her gaze suddenly so sad-eyed.

He takes his time with the flower, knowing that she will leave when he is done. Finally, his fingers trail away, leaving the flower glowing in place.

"I will always keep it."

"Kaho, are you sure?"

There is mischief in her eyes.

"What, about keeping the flower? I can't think of a reason why not to. I'll press it between the pages of my favourite book, and it shall keep."

She is not looking at him. In the distance, the streetlamps are like so many fireflies, blown like precious gold fairydust over the city.

"In all my life, I swear I never saw such a night," she says.

He swallows, closes his eyes for one long second, his hand a fist curled around the handle of the taxi's door. When he was a child and it was a particularly cloudy night with no stars in the sky, he would do as children do when there is something their hearts desire - close his eyes and count to seven, and on the seventh count he would make a wish.

"I wasn't talking about the flower, Kaho."

He is no longer a child.

"I know."

Overhead, the sky is clear as skies can only be after rain.

The cabbie is growing impatient again.

"I'm not being paid to sit around here all night, lady. Say goodnight to your toy boy and let's be getting on," he growls. There is no affection in the words, only cold, blunt detachment.

"I'll double your fee," Kaho says, voice cool. He quietens at that, turns back away from them and begins to adjust his mirror with intent face, a pretence of privacy for them.

"Eriol," she says, and turns her eyes to him, finally. They are amber and gold and Eastern sunsets. All the breath is snatched from his body and he wants to crumple, crumple and fall and dissolve and forget.

"This is not the end. For us, it is never the end. We will meet again someday, maybe years down the line. We will not be the people we are here tonight."

He swallows. He knows the old clichés, knives twisting their blades into the broken-hearteds' chests, heavy stones of grief and lost love grazing every time they breathe, every fibre of their being screaming out in such pain, such agony –

STAY WITH ME

But he just feels empty. Inside him, there is space. Before, he tried to plug it with such trivial things, and now the things with which he filled himself are being drawn away.

He watches almost in wonder as he is stripped, reduced. How must she feel?

"You are certain." It is not quite a question, he knows her too well.

She laughs. "I know these things."

He shuts the door, her door, the slam and click the closing; the last line of the novel, the final scene in the play where everyone dies, or the couple falls in love, or happily ever after really does come true, and then the audience claps and everyone goes home.

Everyone goes home.

"Where to, lady?" the cabbie asks finally, his voice rough, laden with years of cigarette after cigarette. He bares yellow teeth in a smile that she supposes is supposed to be sympathetic, kindly; frankly it makes her want to hop right back out. The man is a walking non-smoking advertisement. When he moves his arms gaudy, unsightly, thick gold chains clank together.

"Just drive, please, and I'll tell you when to stop."

"You just want to be somewhere far away from here?"

Something about books and their covers occurs to Kaho.

"Yes," she says gratefully, and sags back into the seat. The interior smells like an ashtray into which has been smoked several extremely pungent cigars. She casts an appraising look at the taxi driver again and gauges – this is what forty years of tobacco abuse does to you, kids. Still feel like lighting up?

If the government ever adopted it as a campaign, she would predict massive success.

As they pull away from the kerb, she looks back at Eriol. He looks adrift in grey and midnight blue, swirls of night and summer and that after-rain smell and flowers, bursting forth from their garden, spilling secrets onto the street.

Little boy lost.

She cannot bear to look.

"Kaho!" he calls after them as they begin to move away, gathering speed. "Kaho! Wherever shall you go?"

"I don't know!" she shouts back at a figure that is rapidly shrinking. "But it matters not, Eriol! The conclusion will be the same! Until then!"

"Until then!" he shouts, so hard and long that he hurts something in his throat and his lungs cry out for mercy. "Stay safe, Kaho, wherever you wander!"

She flings her hand out of the window and waves, a fleeting glimpse of her elegant hand his only indication that she heard his last.

She has never liked goodbyes.

He stands outside on the pavement for minutes after she has gone, after he has strained his eyes to their limit so that he may watch the car become slowly a dot in the distance.

Around him, life continues even as he stands, unmoving.

The night is still warm. On the footpath pass strolling couples, old and young, children walking puppies with their parents, teenagers young and fresh-faced and just waking up to this world, bright-eyed with the wonder of it. There is a pub up the road that, at the moment, is only spilling out those that are good-naturedly tipsy, happy and friendly and hugging each other, singing.

They are all trying to drain the last few drops of this reluctant summer before it fades away.

An elderly man walks past him, dressed in a light coat, even for the time of year. He looks as though he is a grandfather, the kind who bestows equal love and candies upon all his many grandchildren as he sits by the fire in a rocking chair.

He carries a walking stick. Beside him, a small white dog bounces along, as small dogs are wont to do.

He nods at Eriol, smiles serenely with lined mouth.

"Lovely evening, isn't it?"

Eriol nods in return, still dumbstruck. The sounds of his neighbours next door having a very colourful and creative row filter down through the air.

This, he thinks, is the world.

In the sky, the stars are blazing. The constellations are as clear and true as he has ever seen them.

…

When finally he drags himself up to bed, not knowing how on earth he'll sleep, he sees the bedroom window is open. He knows immediately Kaho has opened it for him – he always sleeps best in a cool room, yet always forgets to leave the window open himself.

On the dresser, she has left a pearl necklace and a pair of earrings in the shape of butterflies. He remembers them on her neck and ears – they were always his very favourite set. They gave her a swan's neck, he'd always said.

Next to them, folded carefully, is a note. He recognises her curling, italic script immediately and unfolds it.

If, up to this point, he ever thought he wanted a proper, thorough explanation for her leaving, he no longer requires it.

Eriol, it reads, together we almost made one whole person.

…

Author's notes: As of late, I've actually begun to write very slowly, so the way this fic is just floating into my mind is so refreshing, and rather wonderful.

I still haven't a concrete plot written out, even in my head, though, so everything is still very much up in the air. This fic could go anywhere – I am letting it write itself.

I'm not sure if my portrayal of Kaho is exactly spot-on, but I don't think I completely mutilated her character. (If it's not absolutely blindingly glaringly obvious, I've never been very confident with writing her). If I annoyed anyone with how I wrote her, I'm deeply sorry.

As for the style of this piece… Don't be too alarmed if it has a tendency to fluctuate. Sometimes the prose might be sparse, sometimes not so sparse. I'm trying different things, but I'm hoping the general tone is at least consistent.

Also – this chapter was abnormally long. I think the chapters of this should probably tend towards the shorter side from now on.


End file.
